Wine making has employed the stoppering of glass bottles since late 18th century (1790) substantially without change. The wine grape, Vitus unifera, has been processed in various ways to produce wines that have been bottled and closed therein with now the traditional "cork" stopper, and for very good reason. The cork stopper plays a major roll in wine making, as it is properly cut into shapes appropriate to the necks of different wine bottles, and permits only a miniscule amount of air to enter the bottle, "breathing" allowing the wine to age slowly to perfection. Without the cork, kept constantly moistened by the wine itself in the tilted bottle, air would swiftly turn the liquid to vinegar. Therefore, it is a general object of this invention to provide an improved wine bottle stopper that is conducive to the use of traditional cork and its inherent ability to provide for said miniscule amount of breathing.
The cork used for stopping wine bottles is from the cork oak, Quercus suber of Portugal, the only cork trees which contain bark of sufficient quality and thickness to warrant such use. Although the cork supply is treated with respect, it is difficult to maintain the quality thereof while meeting the increasing demand. Therefore, it is an object of this invention to use less cork in stoppering the bottles, and a system of stoppering adaptable to cork of less durable quality.
The advent of plastics has not been conducive to the stoppering of wine bottles, for those reasons advanced above with respect to miniscule breathing, and also for the reason that plastics tend to chemically contaminate the liquid wine giving it a distressing taste. On the contrary, the natural bark cork is compatible with wine making processes, and particularly the aging of wine in the bottle, and to this end is highly desirable as a stopper. However, wet and aged cork stoppers tend to disintegrate and they are often difficult to remove from the bottle necks. Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a combined cork and plastic stopper, the cork employed for its traditional advantages and the plastic employed for its superior structural integrity. With the present invention, the plastic member reinforces the cork and all of which is arranged for ease of both installation and extraction.
Stoppering of wine bottles is accomplished by both manual and automated pressing of the corks into the bottle necks, it being an object of this invention to provide a unit combined of the aforesaid cork and crown members which is also conducive to either manual or automated installation into the bottle neck. With the present invention, a retaining ring is included in the combination in order to constrain the legs of the crown member to the mean inner diameter of the bottle neck, whereby insertion is facilitated.
Re-stoppering of wine has not been too satisfactory when reusing the original cork stopper, simply because the usual mode of removal employs a "corkscrew" that penetrates the cork and destroys its integrity or sealing capability. That is, the penetrated cork no longer has miniscule control over the entry of air. Furthermore, the use of corkscrews results in crumbs of cork dropping into the liquid wine, it being customary and the duty of the host to dispose of the first wine poured from the bottle which contains these crumbs of cork etc. It is an object therefore, to provide a stopper head that is engageable by various means, without penetration of the cork, without crumbling the same, and to remove the stopper combination from the bottle neck; either manually or with the aid of a conventional corkscrew or special mechanical puller. With the present invention there is a plastic member that establishes a head which overlies the cork member, and which is vented for said miniscule breathing; and there are anchors depending from the head to engage between the bottle neck and cork and by which the cork is gripped for subsequent extraction. The head of the plastic member supplies the structural integrity for extraction, through mechanical engagement with the corkscrew and/or the special puller, and all to the end that the cork is not penetrated. Re-insertion of this stopper combination is then effective in re-establishing the original stopped condition.